Saturday morning round-up and Open Thread

You’ve all heard already that the IRS is going Nixon one better and, rather than claiming just an 18 minute gap, is telling Congress that two-years’ worth of Lois Lerner’s emails were wiped out when a hard-drive crashed. This is impossible to believe.

[T]he idea that a “hard drive crash” somehow destroyed all of Ms. Lerner’s intra-government email correspondence during the period in question [2009-2011] is laughable. Government email servers are backed up every night. So if she actually had a hard drive fail, her emails would be recoverable from the backup. If the backup was somehow also compromised, then we are talking about a conspiracy.

Exactly.

The worst part of the attorney’s email is the post script: “I’m serious about your keeping any identifying information out of the media. Things are very, very bad.” (Emphasis mine.)

That’s not the post script we associate with a Justice Department worker. That’s the type of post script we associate with someone working in a tyranny.

Incidentally, there’s a nice legal word for what the IRS appears to have done with Lerner’s emails: “Spoliation.” It means to destroy documents deliberately after becoming aware that those documents can become the subject a judicial matter, either civil or criminal. In California, the punishment for spoliation is harsh, since it’s a fraud on the courts. Usually, of course, it’s a lot harder to prove than with the IRS’s Nixon redux.

***

Two articles came across my consciousness yesterday, and both speak to exactly the same point, which is that the Left views religion, not as a spiritual matter tied to God, but solely as a competing power for control over people.

The first article I saw was the announcement that the government of Denmark has mandated that Danish churches must perform gay marriage ceremonies. I instantly had three separate thoughts: (1) That’s why the Founders separated church and state. (2) American Leftists want the state separated from the church, but they don’t want the church separated from the state. (3) The article I read, which quotes many Danish sources, doesn’t mention a single word about God, the Bible, religious doctrine, or faith. The Danish church, in other words, is precisely the same as the Russian Orthodox church under the Soviets: It is an instrument of the state, not of God.

These thoughts were still swirling through my brain when I read an article about Bowdoin’s crackdown on religious groups, a practice that the New York Times revealed. Bowdoin has mandated that all religious groups must open leadership positions to people who don’t believe in the religion. One might ask “Why would someone want to head a religious group if he doesn’t believe in the faith?” The obvious and only answer to destroy the faith. But Bowdoin doesn’t see it this way. It claims that this is all in the interests of anti-discrimination, diversity, and inclusiveness.

Michael Toscano, who wrote the article, had the perfect analysis of Bowdoin’s view, one that applies to Denmark as well:

Bowdoin’s reply to the Times reveals a fundamental problem with the way it understands religion. Bowdoin complained, “Every other volunteer connected with a student organization signed the agreement.” The clear implication was that because the Muslim and Catholic volunteers signed it, Evangelical Christians should be able to do so also. Bowdoin really believes that religions and religious doctrines are entirely fungible. In this view, religions have no unique internal integrity, traditions, and doctrines that make specific and different demands on their adherents. They are all just collections of subjective and arbitrary “beliefs” that can be reordered at whim by students, volunteers, and Bowdoin itself. This view is most apparent in the statement’s assertion that the problem with the Gregorys was that they sought to make “choices” and “decisions” about Christian sexuality on behalf of the students. According to Bowdoin, “These decisions are up to the students themselves.”

Bowdoin simply does not understand religion, and that’s why its non-discriminatory policy is really no surprise. The college cannot understand that what it calls “choices” and “decisions” are for the Gregorys [who head the organization under attack], the BCF [Bowdoin Christian Fellowship], and the other religious men and women at Bowdoin College, matters of faith, truth, and even love.

That quotation could apply equally well to the mandate in Denmark.

And as I hinted above, please don’t think that in Obama’s America the First Amendment will be the strong wall that will protect religions from the mandate that they perform same-sex weddings. As the above-quoted Department of Justice attorney said, in Obama’s D.C. fiefdom, “things are very, very bad.”

The government’s position, backed by arms and the IRS, will be that the civil right to a same-sex marriage trumps the First Amendment. Moreover, no respect will be accorded the legally and constitutionally accurate defense that, per those judges who are falling like dominoes, the state is free to authorize civil same-sex marriages, but it cannot force religious institutions to do so. We already know from the administration’s efforts to force religious organizations to fund abortions that this argument is given, not just short shrift, but no shrift at all.

Apparently one Columbine survivor didn’t like being the fish in a barrel on the receiving end of a fish shoot. He thinks that the answer is letting the fish shoot back. He therefore has written an open letter to the president opposing the administration’s attempts to legislate the Second Amendment out of existence.

***

There are lots of articles lately about Hillary’s tin ear and off-putting self-righteousness and dishonesty. I mean, who doesn’t get a laugh out of her claim that she and Bill were headed for the poor house when they left the White House and, just by sheer luck, somehow found themselves in a 5-bedroom mansion in one of New York’s priciest suburbs (as well as, I believe, a condo in New York). For this reason, we conservatives all think that Hillary’s personal horribleness will kill her campaign.

Hillary is NOT a celebrity but an American fixture and part of the national landscape, my friend argued. Therefore, people will not “get sick of her” and she is not “going away.” Having been on the scene since 1992 she is not just a political figure but a cultural force and a hero to women. Hillary is like a blue-chip stock, she will always endure through ups and downs. She has managed to stay relevant and become the most prominent woman in the nation. Throughout the years Hillary has matured and gathered more experience. Thus, I am “totally off base” with my premise that she could even have an expiration date and I am exhibiting Republican wishful thinking.

I think he’s right. Paying attention to my DemProg friends’ Facebook posts, it’s clear that they’re already all in for Hillary because she’s, well, Hillary. Just as Obama was “The One,” she’s “The Hillary,” and that’s good enough for them.

That doesn’t mean Hillary will win, but it does mean that lots of DemProgs will never desert her, no matter how tin-eared a candidate she is, no matter her corruption, no matter anything. She’s The Hillary, and her time is now.

***

Here’s a letter that’s a hoax, but I’m including it as the graphic portion of my round-up because it perfectly illustrates the mentality I’ve seen in teachers in our public school district. I’ve never forgotten the day when a teacher marked my daughter’s spelling test down in much the same way. (I blogged about the whole experience here. Please note the update to that post.)

This is a HOAX, but it resonates, because I had a real experience that was similar.

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Like most zombie cultists, the moment they jump ship from believing in Stalin or Hussein, they find another dictator to believe in.

People are naive if they think the Left’s mind control powers are so easily defeated by getting rid of Hussein O.

JKB

All in for Hillary may be a good thing. That bodes of a civil war for the DemProg nomination in 2016. And knowing this will be the last viable time, it’ll be much bloodier than the last. I do think Hillary has passed expiration outside the zealots.

I did like the “blue chip” analogy. They must mean like GM? or Kodak? or well there are so many.

I find some good in the terrible news from Iraq, as well as the trade of killers for a deserter. I don’t think Obama or any of the name-brand DemProgs have a chance of gaining the support of the military and thus have little chance of something drastic. Not to mention, the thousands out of uniform but still loyal to their oath. Sure, he may get some acolytes in the flag ranks but should they rise against the Constitution, I would expect the result would be being summarily shot rather than followed.

They were trying to kill off the military veterans as fast as they could via the VA wait lines, but there’s only so many they can process at a time.

Charles Martel

Just to keep Bowdoin honest, I’d recruit some tough young Jews and Christians to infiltrate the Muslim and queer groups, as well as the feminist clubs on campus (after all, gender is a social construct and who’s to say that our strapping young bucks don’t really self-identify as pudenda-ites?).

Spoliation is a fraud on the courts. Holy Cow! – can’t have that! That the courts are and have been mostly a fraud on all the rest of us, well, that’s okay. What the hell are we, here in the land of the free?

Jose

Yeah, the lost email claim is bogus. Any institution involved in legal activities will have nightly backups, as a CYA measure, if needed, in court. I would think that IRS Management would be required by law to maintain backups. So that tells us that Lerner’s email is very bad.

Here is Eric Holder on “civil rights” versus religion: “We’ve also expanded enforcement efforts to guarantee that in our work places, our military bases, in our housing and lending markets, in our voting booths in our border areas, in our schools and places of worship. And I mean all places of worship,”

jj

I forgot to mention, with regard to your final entry and its look back; the bet remains open. You never accepted it, but then you never turned it down, either. Shall we at long last find out what the teacher knows? 🙂

I became curious to verify the impact the the abandonment of Vietnam on the Democrats to see about parallels with Iraq. I found this piece from the Weekly Standard in 2007. The quote from Lawrence Haas is on point (too bad the examiner round files their old posts):

The Lawrence Haas quote:“The parallels are striking. In 1975, a Democratic Congress cut off funds for the U.S. effort in Vietnam. The public, disillusioned over Vietnam and Watergate, elected Jimmy Carter, who promised honesty and applauded the end of “our irrational fear of Communism.”

As America turned inward in the late 1970s, enemies sensed our vulnerability and dangers mounted. The fear of communism was not so irrational after all. In Ethiopia, Angola, Rhodesia and elsewhere, the Soviet Union or Cuba worked to stoke Third World revolution. The Soviets more openly laid bare their expansionist agenda in late 1979 by invading Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolution in Iran of 1979 toppled a staunch U.S. ally. The student seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, leading to a 444-day hostage crisis, painted a picture of American impotence.

But, as the decade came to a close, Americans had had enough of defeat and humiliation. Just five years after Americans had bid goodbye to Vietnam and turned inward, they elected Ronald Reagan, who promised to rebuild the nation’s defenses and stop the drift of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, in that campaign season, Reagan called Vietnam a “noble cause.””

Interesting a quick Google reveals the damage to the party by the split over Vietnam is a long running issue. And now, they have abandoned another country to an enemy after much American blood was spilled. One thing Americans don’t like, even some Democrats is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

JKB

I went looking for the original Haas article mentioned in the post above. It still seems to be MIA.

But I did find this little assessment. Obviously, it is mis-dated a year early but it is a prime example of the hope now disillusion in Obama. And the lies that were perpetrated about how he might run his now failing presidency. It does lay out the marked failure on every front. Yes, even healthcare in that cost aren’t going down and the uninsured just got shuffled. We have the internet, it is good to step back and look at the trail we’ve traveled.

Americans will do as they are told. The majority of police and federal swat kill teams, use the excuse that it is their “job”. It’s their job, they have their orders, they have no choice but to obey. Add in all the Democrat voters. Add in all that 3rd class citizens working for lower wages in Democrat mansions and restaurants.

Danny Lemieux

JKB, this is nothing new: the Progressive-Democrat “Copperhead” party has been backstabbing this country and others since at-least the Civil War. Even in WWII, they didn’t turn against Nazi Germany until Hitler attacked Stalin’s Soviet Union.
As in the story of the frog and the scorpion…because, it is in their nature.